Meisner Notes

Sanford Meisner
1905-1997
.Meisner's system is not centred around recollecting emotional truths from some point in your past, like Stanislavsky's method of acting. 

.Meisner's technique is about actors really connecting to the truths of a character and about acting those emotional realities through workshopping. 

.It is about the imaginative connection between the actor and the given circumstances  

.Meisner is about really listening on stage not only to what fellow characters are saying and to react in the moment, but also, in rehearsal to truly listen to what other actors are saying about the choices they are making about their characters, as this helps you to establish you relationship based not only on your internal thoughts, but also on what is being given to you by a fellow actor/character.
.The actions of one actor depend on focusing on and reacting to the other. 

.Meisner was very fond of a specific type of workshop which should result in what he called the 'Fight or F**k' instinct. This is where two actors work closely together to determine a rapport with a fellow actor through maintaining eye-contact for long periods of time (a good time is two hours) in which you build from making calls about how one looks (i.e. Clothing, hair colour, eye colour) to physical calls (i.e. You are moving your hand, you winked) to emotional calls (you are happy/sad) all of these calls are repeated within the pairs. 

. In the workshop me and Ffion did a scene using the Meisner technique, which went really very well, in fact we had to hug it out at the end, because of how angry we were at each other.